Pages

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

A Hard-Workin' Wife

I spent
some time with a good friend last week, and we were talking about how easy life
seemed in high school. And I have to admit, life did come easy.
Getting "A's" in school took very little effort, music was my second
language, and once I discovered drama, even that came easily to me.
College was a little more challenging, but for the most part I breezed through
it. There were a few things that got pretty difficult, but I usually
decided that they were too hard and quit doing them.

As an
adult, I have discovered about myself that I still have that same expectation:
life should be easy. I should be able to do whatever it is that I've
decided to do and it should require very little effort. Marriage,
parenting, managing a home, serving in the church...they should all be
easy. Right?
Yeah, you can stop laughing at me now. Trust me, I know that I couldn't
be more wrong. I know without a doubt that life takes work.HARD
work. It doesn't just "happen." Well, it can
"just happen." But then you don't end up with the abundant life
that Jesus came to this earth to bring us. (John 10:10)

I've been
mulling over this idea for the past few days, specifically in connection with marriage. It's not a new concept for me, this idea of marriage taking
work. What is new is the realization that I'm not very good at working hard toward something. I'm so used to having things come
easily to me that it frustrates me when my relationship with my husband isn't
easy! And instead of digging my heels in and getting my hands dirty, I'm
tempted to listen to the liar who tells me just to quit. Oh, I never
really give up and quit, but I resign myself to letting things "just
happen." And I think I'm missing the abundant marriage that God
planned for me and Scott.

So what
does it really mean to "work" on our marriages? I've got to
admit, I'm still learning myself. But this is what I think it looks like,
at least in part: It means making a conscious choice to do things that please our husbands, and putting forth a concerted effort to actually do those things. It
means choosing not to get angry over the little stuff, and trying to see
situations from their perspective. It means praying for our husbands every morning,
and praying that God will make them the center of our desire. It means
offering ourselves to them at night regardless of how tired we are or how fat we
feel. It means acting loving toward them even when we don't feel like
it. It means being proud of them and encouraging them. It means
letting them know that we're grateful for them and that we're we're glad they're the leaders of
our families. And that's just the start.

Wow.
That really is a whole lot of work. And it certainly doesn't sound
easy. Some of it even sounds downright uncomfortable! But as I was
praying about this post this morning, God reminded me that Jesus never promised
that life would be easy. Instead, He promised that following Him would be
difficult and uncomfortable. (Luke 9:23, 58; John 16:33) Part of being
obedient to Christ is loving and respecting our husbands (Ephesians 5:22-24, 33)
and those things are not going to happen on their own.

Sigh.

Life was
so much easier when it was...well...EASY. But it's time to stop settling for
what comes easy (mediocrity!) and work for something better.
Paul describes in First Corinthians 9 the way a runner trains in order to win a
race. The NIV calls it "strict training." Which means
they're working HARD at what they're doing in order to be the best. I've
been a runner and I've trained for a race. I didn't train to win, just to
finish, but I worked hard at it nonetheless! We need to work that hard for our marriages, but not be content with just "finishing the
race" with our husbands. We want to be able to look back at our years with our husbands and see how rich and full they were. We want to look forward to
the coming years with excitement and anticipation of how good they're going
to be, not wonder how in the world our marriages are going to make it that long. Our marriages can be FABULOUS! But it's going to take some work.

The first thing we've got to do is PRAY, because this is not something we can accomplish
on our own. Without the Holy Spirit leading us, we'll get tired
and burned out and eventually we'll just give up. So, start with
prayer, but then it's time to get in there and get to work!

Follow by Email

Hi, I'm Angela!

But most most people know me as Angie...or Mom...or Mrs. Logan. With four school-aged children and a music-teacher husband, life gets a little chaotic and a lot messy. I'm sure you can relate! When I'm not chasing my kids or cleaning up after them or snuggled up close with them, I am busy pursuing my passion of studying and teaching God's Word. It is my heart's truest desire to be used by God to shine His light into our dark world.